Heroic Stone Guards - demo or aff

first attempts at heroic stone guards last night. best attempt got in mid-30%. we couldnt click the damn crystals, which was really hurting us. (being fixed today)

couple things:
you have to run around a lot in this fight to build stacks of the dmg/spirit buff - we have assigned all dps to charge as many as they can.
after each dps does a few rounds of building the buff you stand and burn, then the boss clears the buff stacks at x%. rinse, repeat 3 times

i am wondering if demo might be better for this because it is a heavy movement fight. we can build up demonic fury while we are stacking the buff, then unload on the boss with the increased damage?

as affliction
on attempts where i stood still the whole time i was able to stay between 80 and 100k dps,

on attempts where i was stacking as much of the buff as i could, i was pulling closer to 70k... every few attempts i was able to increase this a bit. once i was even over 90k with this heavy movement, but for the most part it really hurt my dps. it really goes down on attempts where i am unable to cast many MGs. (bc there is so much movement)

I was pulling 100k - 120k last night on our many attempts (with Lust and DG), we only got the Stone Guards to about 35% so I think it will be higher with execute. Both myself 466 ilvl and our other 471 ilvl Warlock were Affliction and we kept focused targets dotted with SB:SS, with MG as filler, we ignored Haunt. Also we placed our Demonic Gateways on either side of the room so that people lighting up the tiles could start from opposite ends and cover more ground. I found Kil'jaedens Cunning was key for maintaining MG while avoiding the myriad of damaging ground abilities, however we were in 25 man so this may not be as essential for 10 man.

Also SS without the Glyph is very useful for this fight since you can pull dots off a target which is no longer being focused and move them to the next focused target, saving yourself a soul shard.

I was pulling 100k - 120k last night on our many attempts (with Lust and DG), we only got the Stone Guards to about 35% so I think it will be higher with execute. Both myself 466 ilvl and our other 471 ilvl Warlock were Affliction and we kept focused targets dotted with SB:SS, with MG as filler, we ignored Haunt. Also we placed our Demonic Gateways on either side of the room so that people lighting up the tiles could start from opposite ends and cover more ground. I found Kil'jaedens Cunning was key for maintaining MG while avoiding the myriad of damaging ground abilities, however we were in 25 man so this may not be as essential for 10 man.

Also SS without the Glyph is very useful for this fight since you can pull dots off a target which is no longer being focused and move them to the next focused target, saving yourself a soul shard.

Honestly, the targets move around too much, there's too much shit to avoid and you have too much multi-dotting to be able make effective use of a Haunt. I would only use shards for SB:SS until you reach execute phase when you start capping shards and then go ahead and throw a Haunt on your target.

I just can't get the hang of this boss. Between running the tiles, avoiding amethyst pools and cobalt crystals and dancing with the chains, I'm completely lost with which target should be dpsed, and dots will fall off if I try to dot another target. Not even sure when I should use DS and other cooldowns as I have to activate tiles twice in the beginning. I'm affli and I have KJ's cunning but it's sort of sh*tty to have a movement reduction (de)buff.

I just can't get the hang of this boss. Between running the tiles, avoiding amethyst pools and cobalt crystals and dancing with the chains, I'm completely lost with which target should be dpsed, and dots will fall off if I try to dot another target. Not even sure when I should use DS and other cooldowns as I have to activate tiles twice in the beginning. I'm affli and I have KJ's cunning but it's sort of sh*tty to have a movement reduction (de)buff.

Keep at it, it's not an incredibly difficut fight, but it can seem complex at first. DPS the two being tanked together, the other two loners have a damage reduction buff and you ignore them. As for the tiles and other fight mechanic movement issues, all I can say is it's part of the fight, you have to deal with it; being able to avoid shit on the ground, paying attention to which targets need to be focused, and correctly executing fight mechanics is what progression raiding is all about. Good luck!

Keep at it, it's not an incredibly difficut fight, but it can seem complex at first. DPS the two being tanked together, the other two loners have a damage reduction buff and you ignore them. As for the tiles and other fight mechanic movement issues, all I can say is it's part of the fight, you have to deal with it; being able to avoid shit on the ground, paying attention to which targets need to be focused, and correctly executing fight mechanics is what progression raiding is all about. Good luck!

Ugh. Hate this fight so so much and have never seen so many skeletons on the ground than last nights HM attempts. I thought all dogs lost the dmg reduction buff shortly after engaging. =\ Gonna assume it's safe to simply ignore the lone dog being tanked and just double dot the two that are being tanked in 10s. No wonder life and dps was so spectacularly sucky for me. Hating the mechanics to the max.

Un-glyphed soul swap is amazing for this fight. If you have dots running out on the target that's about to be moved over to be alone and you consume them, when you apply them to the new mob they have a new base duration that's longer than the originals by quite a bit. You don't lose anything either way as well because the solo mob(s) have 90% reduced damage taken.

Un-glyphed soul swap is amazing for this fight. If you have dots running out on the target that's about to be moved over to be alone and you consume them, when you apply them to the new mob they have a new base duration that's longer than the originals by quite a bit. You don't lose anything either way as well because the solo mob(s) have 90% reduced damage taken.

This is basically what I did, if you can keep track of the guardians just be ready for when the tanks swap mobs and you just pull your dots and transfer them to the next active guardian.

destro is only good at short bursts n its highest of the spec at the beginning of a fight but after that and dark soul wears off and ur out of embers
the other two pull ahead
i love demo has great burst dots and pets and demonic abilities for movement and has sick aoe
great for all fights but affliction is also really good
destro is sick at dungeons and short fights but thats about it

destro is only good at short bursts n its highest of the spec at the beginning of a fight but after that and dark soul wears off and ur out of embers
the other two pull ahead
i love demo has great burst dots and pets and demonic abilities for movement and has sick aoe
great for all fights but affliction is also really good
destro is sick at dungeons and short fights but thats about it

And yet the highest Warlock public parse for now is Destro (there are probably higher hidden parses), the spec seems fine to me for this fight. But as always in T14, nobody is playing it